Seventeen-year-old Indian tennis player Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi became the youngest Indian woman to win a professional singles tournament on Sunday by defeating Spain’s Celia Cervino Ruiz 6-4, 6-2 in the final of the ITF W35 event in Lagos, Portugal. The Coimbatore native, ranked 1038 in the world, also claimed the doubles title with Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Kotliar. She entered as a qualifier and did not drop a set throughout the event.
Maaya recovered from 0-5 down in the first set of her main-draw opening match to defeat top seed Justina Mikulskyte. In the final against her 28-year-old opponent, she felt pressure after taking the first set. A tune she had heard earlier that morning returned to her mind. “I felt like I was taking a lot of pressure. I just zoned out, and started singing something in my head just to be light and let go (of the stress),” she said. “I think that really helped. And by the match point, I didn’t really think of it as match point. It was just another point for me.”
She described the victory as special. “The first one is always special and lots of sweet memories this week. For me, it just felt like another tournament because I’ve been competing for a while now.” Maaya added that she arrived without expectations. “I came in with no expectations. I just went out there and tried to play as good as I can because I was the underdog. In pro tournaments, everyone plays at a decent level, so on any given day it comes down to who plays better. Overall, I delivered better tennis than my opponents.”
As a 15-year-old in 2025, Maaya advanced from qualification to the semi-finals of the W125 Mumbai Open. That run earned her first WTA ranking points and lifted her from unranked to 642 in the world. She previously trained at the Rafael Nadal Academy in Spain before moving a few months ago to the Elite Tennis Centre in Cannes, France. She has not yet switched permanently to the senior circuit and has collected junior titles, including two J300 events this year in France and Germany, plus a J300 in New Delhi last year and a semi-final at a J500 in Osaka last month. The W35 title is her largest so far.
Maaya viewed the result as an early step. “This is just the start because it’s the first title and it’s a good sign. But I don’t think this is going to make that big of a deal,” she said. “It’s given me the confidence that I can compete better, so I’ll take that into the next tournaments.”
